Tribal fighters supported by British and American special forces chase fleeing al-Qaida guerrillas through the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

Tribal fighters supported by British and American special forces chased fleeing al-Qaida guerrillas through the mountains of eastern Afghanistan today after conquering their complex of caves and tunnels.

Some tearful al-Qaida fighters surrendered, pleading with their Afghan captors not to turn them over to the Americans.

About 200 foreigners from al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, have been killed in nine weeks of attacks by American warplanes in the air and Eastern Alliance forces on the ground.

Hundreds more were believed to be on the run, and there was no word on the whereabouts of bin Laden, who some reports had placed in the area.

Air strikes were less intense today than in previous weeks, but bombs still exploded deep in the forests on the snowcapped mountain range where al-Qaida fighters were believed to be fleeing. Cannon fire from helicopter gunships gave an orange tint to low-lying clouds over the mountains.

Eastern Alliance fighters said misdirected US bombs killed three of their fighters overnight, repeating charges levelled earlier in the fighting that the Americans were not taking enough care to avoid hitting their allies.

Auzubillah, a commander of the tribal Eastern Alliance, said his forces clashed early today with retreating al-Qaida fighters, killing two of them and capturing five. He reported finding ammunition and food stores in abandoned caves.

Captured al-Qaida members were led down the mountainside on mules amid intermittent snow. Many were crying.

Thirteen captured fighters - four of them seriously wounded - were held in the mountains by men under commander Haji Zahir.

The captors said the group included two senior al-Qaida commanders, whose names were not given. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday during a visit to Afghanistan that one senior al-Qaida leader reportedly had been captured, but he did not identify him.

The captured fighters said they had seen bin Laden in the area a month ago, but were not sure where he was now.

It was unclear what would happen to the captured al-Qaida men. Commanders spoke alternately of handing them over to US authorities or of letting Afghanistan's interim government, which will take office on Saturday, deal with them. US marines in southern Afghanistan have built a prisoner-of-war facility able to hold 300 people.

The area around Tora Bora was the last major pocket of al-Qaida resistance in Afghanistan. The Eastern Alliance - a collection of fighters under tribal leaders in Afghanistan's east - said yesterday that it had captured the foreign fighters' defensive positions and smiling Eastern Alliance forces chanted in English, "Al-Qaida is finished! Al-Qaida is finished!"

But General Tommy Franks, the war's commander, and events on the ground both made clear the fighting was far from over. "It's going to be a while before we have the area of Tora Bora fully under control," Franks said yesterday.

In Kabul, the Afghan capital, US officials were reopening a liaison office at the US embassy building, closed in 1989. Veteran diplomat James Dobbins will run the liaison office until it is upgraded again to an embassy.

In southern Afghanistan, a US marine who stepped on a land mine at Kandahar?s airport was flown to a hospital outside Afghanistan, said marines spokesman Captain David Romley. Romley said Corporal Chris Chandler lost his food in the accident.